


The end of the world does come and go

by Anonymous



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-18
Updated: 2017-07-01
Packaged: 2018-11-15 13:15:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,180
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11231763
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: A prompt for Roy; "five times one of them stays."About how the world is still here, and how going on can be done.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Parts 1-3 of five. First three, Magnus' POV, second two, Taako's. Gonna try posting it in halves to get me to finish this darn thing tonight.
> 
> A very not-canon take on their first mission and a somewhat incomprehensible take on everything past the suffering game, as I had to stop listening after all the body horror stuff came up. Did what I could with what I had.

1\. Hammerfel

 

It happens before the Bureau, before Phandalin, or Gundrin. They walk into a little tavern, looking for an elf that matches the crude doodle and flourishing script littered on various 'For Hire' bulletins in the city.

"That's a bad sign," Merle had said, not needing to draw attention to the stars drawn around Taako's winking cartoon face. They were loud enough.

"Everybody else has turned us down before," he says, and Merle gives a long, gruff sigh that by then he knows well.

They were a few months into their dual venture. "Skeleton work" was the name for it, the last bastion of the desperate, or anyone too foolish for self-preservation. At first, Magnus had thought Merle to fit in the latter category; some old dwarf going through his middle-aged crisis, burning a chunk of his savings on a set of armor and road rations. But he was a good businessman, could resist the haggling and runaround in ways Magnus couldn't, and it was always good to travel with a healer. They'd made a nice pair. But not nice enough to clear that cavern of mud wraiths, and the offer was still on the table if they could finish the job in the next few days.

"We need him," Magnus reminds him.

"We'll see about that," he'd answered, but they told the tavern master to pass along their request to meet him here the next night all the same.

Taako was easy to recognize, once Magnus saw him. Tucked away into a corner booth beside an orc that seemed to be enduring him, he was sunk down against his seat, boots up on the table and hat turned down to cover his face. It was just something about him that couldn't have been anyone else; a paradox of flagrant discretion.

They walk up to him, and he lifts the brim to peer up. He's got a tired face, slightly weathered. His lowered eyelids painted just a few shades brighter than his coppery skin. Magnus is nearly uncomfortable with how his elven features are knobby and jutting, like in all the worst caricatures, his ears big and rounded enough to bring to mind the most insensitive comparisons to prey animals. This is an _elf's_ elf. If the reaction is on his face, Taako doesn't notice, or pretends not to. He smirks, then grins-- his golden eyes are wild and glinting under the shadow of his hat.

"So, boys. What are we up to?"

 

\--

 

Long before Magnus knows it's going to be a pattern, what they're up to turns out to be getting their asses handed to them.

With him and Merle, they would fight back-to-back with the enemies on either side. With Taako, it had somehow devolved into utter chaos.

He's on his back, then up again. Taako dances away from one swipe of a muddy, spectral claw and ducks under the other. Merle backs towards the cave wall away from two attackers, shield raised and hammer swinging. The thing that knocked him over is coming at him, so he slams his own shield forward and rattles chunks of earth out of their wispy tethers. A slash of his axe dispels the rest of the thing into plumes of shrieking mist that whisk past his ears. _One down_.

He makes a tough, sudden call, but follows the lurch in his gut to Taako. Takes out the first one just as it gets a clawful of wizard cloak. Looks away from the second long enough for a rock the size of his head to slam into his torso, then the wall is at his back, something crunches, and the world goes dark.

 

\--

 

When he wakes up, he's in a warm bed. Through his bleary vision he recognizes it as his room in Hammerfel's cheapest inn... what was it called? The _Prancing Dragon_? _Green Pony_? Something just as awful, probably. For some reason he's still trying to remember the name of the damn place as his basic awareness returns to him. _Wow_ , his ribs hurt. And his head, and his arm. He groans, trying to sit up, but rethinking it just soon enough to try wiggling his shoulders and toes instead. Yep, everything moving. His arm is caught in some sort of slung wrapping, so he guesses it's broken. That's funny; he doesn't remember anything happening to the arm.

He opens his eyes again, studying the ceiling. It's a lot clearer now, and he can see the way orange firelight competes with the gray glow of the cloudy afternoon through the window, and hear the crackling of the fireplace, and an odd _shhk, shhk, shhk_ to his left.

He turns, and nearly jumps to see Taako perched on the nightstand, peeling an apple with a tiny dagger-- with a squint, recognizable as _his_ tiny dagger.

"Hey," is the first thing he says, though he has no idea what to follow it up with. Taako doesn't look at him, still peeling the skin away into a long, coiling string. "That's _mine_."

" _You_ weren't using it," he defends, then expertly cuts away a chunk of the fruit from the whole and pops it into his mouth. "And right now you can't take it back, so bite me."

He sighs, (which hurts to do,) baffled and defeated. There's just nothing to be done about it. Taako goes back to munching, staring into the room while hunched over his knees. Magnus looks him over; he seems scuffed, and mud still sits on his clothes in little patches, but otherwise he's okay. The next sigh out of him is smaller, out of care for his ribs, and relief.

"Where's Merle?"

"Getting our money. We cleared it out, no thanks to _you_." Taako looks down at him over the apple with a sneer, the short blonde hairs that escape his braid waving over his face. "What are you, green? You left yourself wide open. I don't like working with amateurs."

"I'm not an _amateur,_ " he deflects, thinking of Kalen's men-- so many of them-- going into sudden silence under his axe-- and stops thinking about it immediately. He purses his lips tight. "I just didn't want them to get you."

Taako lets out a note, a high-pitched _uugh!_ or maybe _uuh!,_ but a sound of unmistakable disgust. He goes back to peeling the apple. Magnus watches the long strip coil away from the fruit, unbreaking, twisting like a snake. It's weirdly mesmerizing, enough it takes his mind off the pain. The pain that isn't so bad, really. He's had worse, anyway.

Taako catches him watching, and rolls his eyes, slicing away a piece of the apple. He's good with that knife, fast and deft but dexterous enough to avoid cutting himself. Magnus takes the slice when offered, and munches it, waiting for the elf to speak again.

"Your god man burned all his spell slots," he explains, gesturing with the blade. "So he couldn't patch you up all the way. He'll top you off tomorrow." Taako cuts off another slice, pops it in his mouth. The gesture is oddly dainty, for how the rest of him is ragged. "He told me to stay here and watch you. Like it matters if you keel over while somebody's watching you. Your partner's an idiot." Taako's knee bounces over his tapping foot, and the hand with the apple bobs as its elbow rests over that-- but the spiral doesn't break.

He could argue, and kind of wants to. He's getting a pretty good idea of what would happen, so he only shrugs. "So why did you?"

Taako stops bouncing. "Huh?"

"I mean. You can go, right?" He gestures best he can to his torso with a heft of his good shoulder. "I mean, this, it's got nothing to do with you. You didn't have to."

Taako grimaces, horror-struck. "I gotta get _paid_ , my dude!" He folds his arms, both objects still in each hand. "I'm not proud, but you guys found me down to my last copper, okay? It was this job or-- I don't even want to-- listen, I can't have folks running out on me this time." The hand with the knife comes away so he can wave it pointedly in Magnus' direction-- so much gesturing, like his limbs always have to be moving. He remembers something about magic tricks, like you have to keep their eyes away from what you're really doing. "Which I'm only saying so you don't get any ideas."

He scoffs. He has to, it's just so goofy. "Well I'm not going anywhere," Magnus explains.

"Uh-huh," Taako agrees, sounding unconvinced. He goes back to peeling.

Magnus smirks. "If you're broke, where'd you get the apple?"

Taako looks up, quirks a lip, and gives a practiced, heart-stopping wink. _Very_ practiced. So practiced, in fact, that it somehow pulls all the oddities of his face together into elegance. Magnus even forgives himself for the little instinctive flutter in his chest. ... _So what? I'm a red-blooded human man! I can flutter!_ And it does, somehow, feel special to be looked at by Taako, a trap Magnus recognizes. He clears his throat. This is too much to learn about someone all at once.

"I'm up now. You could go find Merle. I bet he's got your money."

"Nah-uh. You're my leverage." Taako repositions a foot, plopping it not too gently onto Magnus' shoulder, and he winces to no reaction from his new keeper. "I'm staying right here until that gold's in my pocket, _bubale_."

Magnus sighs, resigned. "...Can I at least have my knife back?"

Taako just grins, and flicks a speck of apple towards him with the blade. He guesses that's his answer.

 

 

\---

 

2\. Wave Echo Cave

 

It's a couple weeks later, on the last job they'll ever need to take. Taako is a motionless pile of limbs on the cave floor.

Magnus falls to his knees, digging a healing potion from his pack, uncorking it with his teeth and a shaking hand. Because by now, this elf has made him laugh every day, has been baffling and charming and ugly and all things in between. Like Merle, he's something alive and close that _stays_. That alone is enough to cling to, but not enough to explain the pounding in his ears.

"Sorry," he mumbles, not sure why. He hefts Taako into his lap and cradles his head. "But I can't let you go."

He pours the potion between Taako's lips. In a moment he's sputtering, breathing again, and gets back to his feet almost faster than Magnus can react, practically bouncing. Unapologetically alive, eager and thankless. Rabbits come to mind again, unwarranted.

 

\---

 

3\. Rockport

 

The first time is in Rockport, giddy from victory, in an evening they stole away from the moon.

The Oculus was safe in its pack, and would be until morning. They all felt entitled enough to a little dishonesty, enough to wait until tomorrow to summon the ride back. Merle seems content to separate into his own agenda, but somehow, that's not what happens to Magnus and Taako. Adrenaline still echoing through them in the wake of their train stunt, something happens.

He's not sure why. Maybe it's the bracers, now, he thinks. Maybe how they keep things out as easily as they let you in, and how somehow, both of them must _feel_ that. Enclosed. So, the evening leads them to each other down in the tavern, and then to the bed in Taako's room.

He should have expected it, but Taako felt good. An almost weird, reassuring, soothing good, like pressure on a wound. A happy and familiar good-- the feeling that the warm skin under his palms might still be there tomorrow, even if he never touched it again. It being there was enough. He didn't need anything more than Taako being alive and his friend, (or hell, just alive, because _Taako_ was a nice thought all on his own--) but this was _fun_. His deeper feelings shudder in guilt, and he ignores it. He's tired of feeling that way-- tired of _everything_ \-- he'll rush in _now_ , and deal with it later. He just went to the fucking _moon_. Everything might as well make as much sense.

It's quick, good-humored and intense, just like him, and then they're lying beside each other in the bed breathing deep. His bicep is under the back of Taako's neck, and he can feel it as the elf arcs into him in a feline stretch.

"Damn," Taako mutters, voice airy. "Why haven't we done _that_ before?"

He shrugs. It's not that there weren't reasons, none the least of which being sex with practical strangers is a few steps behind-- well, apparently for him, a few steps behind defending them with his life. But he still doesn't know. It just hadn't occurred to him. Not until Taako had pulled on his arm, given him a particular look, and something fluttered. _Oh,_ he'd thought. Yeah, he could do this. He remembered how. He was _allowed,_ if he wanted to, and he did. Taako was easy to want, which he suspected was deliberate.

He wonders if he should have thought more about this, before falling into it. But from _that_ day on it's always been much easier to be delirious, and, well-- that's what you get, he supposes.

What was it about the fey? He remembers the stories of people trying to steal away bits of magic from them with tricks and seduction, and suddenly feels like he's been cruel. But Taako seems happy, chattering away at his side.

"This isn't cause you jumped out of a train and nearly _died_ , is it?" Taako pries, fidgeting with his nails. Still always moving, and happy to fill the silence on his own. "Cause I'm just sayin. You're depriving yourself if you need a near-death experience to get horny. Pick a different fetish, dude. You'll live longer."

He just laughs, but not too loudly. He's getting sleepy and content. "Nahh. That's not it." He catches sight of Taako's hair coming loose, and reaches for a tie mischievously only to have his paw slapped away. Taako takes up the thick cord of yellow hair and goes to fixing it, so Magnus watches, drumming his fingers just under his own solar plexus where the sensation reverberates. He lies there quietly, listening to Taako hum, feeling him occasionally squirm in left-over satisfaction, until finally he remembers what he'd wanted to ask in the bar.

"You had a cooking show?"

The squirming stops, and one of his ears twitches. That's all.

"Uhh... what, bub?"

"You know. You were telling Juicy." He tries to imagine Taako with a cooking show, and decides it must have been pretty fun to watch. All flourishing limbs and hooded eyes and silky cadence. He just wouldn't have guessed the guy was into food; Taako was pretty scrawny for a chef, and only ever seemed to snack on things raw, ducking away from large meals. Apples, Carrots. _Rabbit_ pops in his brain again, but it's nearly a slur, so he beats it back down. Stupid noisy brain.

"What happened to it?"

Taako shrugs, eyes shifting. "That's just showbusiness, Maggie. It's fickle." He lifts a hand and wobbles it side to side, as if that explains everything. "One day you're on top, then the next, _pbbbt!_ " The hand falls back down to the bed like a falling bird, and shuts tight. _Squeezes_ tight. Then both hands snap back up to his shoulders, splayed wide open. "So here I am! Making it work, baby. That's how Taako _do_."

"Oh," he says. Just _oh_. "...But people liked you, right?"

"Have you _met_ me? They loved me." He pulls off a poised smirk, chuckles once, then slips back into a grin that couldn't be called anything but goofy with all the crooked teeth in it. Revealing almost too much. He walks a pair of fingers up Magnus' chest, then bops his wide nose a little too hard. "Hey, what happened to carpentry, _huh_ ? Let's talk about _that,_ big boy. Or like, anything else. _Puuh-lease_."

He pauses, frowning. "...The same, I guess?" _Kalen would find me in a second if I ever opened a store._ Even with a pseudonym, his carvings would give him away. He just couldn't get those shapes out of them, _his_ shapes. And what's the point if you can only do it halfway, keeping your head down all the while? Can't carve _your_ shapes?

Bracers and warlords. He studies his forearm, grimacing still.

It's Taako's turn to frown. "So now you're throwin yourself outta trains. Real trade up, busto."

"Hey, you said it yourself! Hard times." Neither of them know what to make of their new employer, not yet. At least, not enough to call it saving the world. It still feels transient to Magnus. Taako, somehow, does not. He shifts down lower against the pillow, which moves his arm under Taako's neck, and the elf reciprocates in another satisfied wriggle.

"Well thanks for not dyin on me, poppa, because that dick was _hot_." Taako gives a repeated cant of his shoulders up into Magnus' arm, almost a coquettish wiggle, and they both snap into laughter. He covers his eyes. When he opens them again, still giggling, he looks down and cups his hand over a small brown waist. It tilts him towards Magnus' chest. Taako looks him in the eye, warm, disheveled, and beautiful from his crooked teeth to his long ears. They stay looking at each other for a moment too long, and both of their smiles fall at the same time.

 

_\---_

 


	2. Chapter 2

 

4\. The Moon

 

The next time isn't for months, and months.

Wherever he lacked judgment, he could always count on pride. Take a sun elf out of the forest, out of a drafty house full of people dying with plague, out of everything, and he's still a sun elf. So said his father, a man he can still remember by the firm set of his small jaw, the impeccable sit of his golden hair. (A man he only sees now echoed in the qualities of his own wild reflection, which is somehow more reassuring than alarming. That something, anything, was left. That bodies that had drowned in their own lungs somehow lived on in him.)

He's not sure he reveres the golden blood in him, exactly. A tarnished orphan of a tarnished people, walking around like that-- it would be too funny to laugh at. So, not still a sun elf, or not a proper one. But pride, pride despite anything. That was _something_. He could keep that in losing all other things.

And pride had no use of wanting. So he doesn't lie awake picking at the corners of a very awful thought. He's fairly sure he's numbed of wanting, anyway. One flick of the wrist, and poison flows out of his veins; so be it.

Taako does not hope. Never-- not for the next relic, not for a happy ending, not for anything but a bloody, bitter struggle to the end, which is sure to come. No one ever gets to see him like that again. Not even the elves in Taako's reflection, though it makes no difference they're too dead to feel shame or pity. (All of them but one.)

It shouldn't matter, because none of it helps. Not at all.

Time keeps lingering. The _hero_ gig keeps dragging on, somehow, and every day he lies in that room and thinks of running. Wonders what he'd do, back on the road. Counts coins like the dead. Wonders if he'd go back to reclaiming what all fell apart, or back to finding excuses not to, or if he would admit nothing scares him more than he might find out it's too late. His aunt would love to say; _the problem is somewhere between the sink and the stove_. He sits in the kitchen when everywhere else is dark; sugar to salt, salt to sugar, sugar to salt.

Wonders if he would think of Magnus, in the cold nights. If he would want.

Refuge happens, is the thing. A small, deserved betrayal becomes more complex. A slight nagging frays into a big, yawning hole. And then there's a great, quiet after.

 

\--

 

Taako lies across the couch in his room, drawing shapes over Kravitz' knee with a painted nail. He's sprawled on his belly, and Death is brushing his hair with a cool, black comb. It's weird, a little. No heat radiates up out of the man's fine clothes, and the way Kravitz moves would seem completely joyless if not for his contented smile, which Taako can see reflected in the windows. It's a soft, contented turn of a lip, and even that much tenderness makes him look away.

"Mnfhg," he groans, into the Thighs of Death. Kravitz lowers an icy hand to his back, and rubs soothingly. Though occasionally uncomfortable, today the chill is nicely grounding.

"What's wrong?"

"Mnnnn," he answers. Not-answers. Puts both of his arms to fold forward on the next seat of the couch, then unfolds them to cover his face in his hands. Kravitz sets the brush down.

Kravitz doesn't pry or offer any kind of baiting consolation, because he simply isn't that cloying. But he does ease Taako to sit up so he can rub each shoulder. There's not a single word demanding him to explain or divulge, and that's because it seems like-- through insight or immortal experience or demi-godhood-- Kravitz already knows. Already knows everything there is to know. He shudders under the cold touch, accidentally, but Kravitz correctly recognizes it as _not_ rejection.

It's so effortless that it makes him feel exposed, and a little useless.

"There are lots of things only living mortals think about," Kravitz explains. Taako _puffs_ out mild, confused incredulity, and sinks back into those hands. They smooth over his shoulders, go down his arms, then wrap around him-- when he look down, he sees flesh, but it's still like being held by twigs. Not _bad_. Just _different,_ and boy can he do different. He can do different all day, if the alternative is...

He swallows. He'd meant to go into this wild and distracted, doing whatever he could to spark thrill or wonder into those old red eyes, and never think a damn thought for the rest of his life. He can't afford to think. He feels as cognizant as ever, peeling himself into bits. 

"Watcha sayin to me, bone man?"

"I'm saying..." Kravitz is so gentle, in how he tucks back a loose strand of hair. (He never does anything wrong, ever. Nothing that hurts. It doesn't even have the danger of being seductive. He didn't expect, after all the joking and flirting was done, to feel so _tired_.) "Death is unconditional. And, maybe-- that isn't everything you need."

His stomach tightens in nauseous shame.

"You breakin up with me?"

Kravitz shakes his head, rubbing a cheek into the back of Taako's neck. It's like the feel of a leather book in winter. He shivers, pleasantly. "No. No, no, no." It's true, he supposes. It's also what he needs to hear, from a basic survival standpoint-- a jenga-tower ego. And Kravitz isn't stupid or needy enough to try something for Taako's _own good_. But he _is_ right. In too many ways. Too many things pulled into blinding clarity.

This is far, far too much to be learning about himself all at once.

The man gets up from behind him-- to leave-- but not before taking his hand and bowing to kiss the back of it. Like he was some kind of duchess. Taako realizes that to him, it must all be the same. _Death, the great equalizer._

 

_\--_

 

So of course, he does the reasonable thing. He steals a bottle of liquor from the kitchen and goes to Magnus.

 

\--

 

When the door opens, he has his most manipulative smile ready, and wags the bottle left and right in his grip. It's all very suggestive.

It feels bad to play Magnus like this-- he's too good of a man to be crawled on top of during a bad night, but he doesn't know what else he's meant to do. So here he is. To feel drunk, and stupid, and happy, maybe even unnerved in the morning. All of it. And to his infinite relief, Magnus smiles like he's happy to see him, implications and all, and lets him in.

Drunk and stupid, he manages before long. He talks like Magnus might as well be air, and somehow that feels right. Hogs his pillows, and the bottle, and once he's sufficiently loose in the ears, he reaches over to tug on Magnus' sleeve.

"C'mere," he insists. "Closer."

He wishes he hadn't seen the look in Magnus' eyes-- a mix of awed and wondering, worrying, before pulling him in. He ignores the lurch in his chest and meets their mouths, and sighs at the warmth of him. It's like coming back to an old habit, somehow.

They'd touched, in the interim. Grown close. Grown _intimate_ , damnit, despite his best efforts. But nothing like this, for so long, and it almost hurts to part his legs and pull Magnus to rest between them, but he does-- or he tries to.

Magnus breaks the kiss, and rests away on straightened arms. "Um," he says.

"Um?" Taako repeats. Impatiently.

_Don't make me talk about this, Mags. Please. Please, if you're half as nice as you seem, you won't make me talk about this._

"It's just--" He pauses, gnaws on a lip. "Does. Uh." And in a moment, he knows the reason behind all the reluctance; "Does... Kravitz--"

The rage boils so quickly, it surprises them both. He pushes that mountain of chest away with all the shove he can muster, thrashing free of blankets and pillows. His heel catches Magnus in the ribs, who groans and backs away, and Taako holds back from giving him another for good measure.

"Fucking hell, Mags," he hisses. Read too clearly, and unable to forgive it. "Is that-- do you think I would _do_ that?"

"Wh--" Magnus pauses, visibly struggling to follow. "No!"

"I can do what I _want,_ " he insists, still in a panic. _Can he?_ Had he misread Kravitz' intentions? _Fuck..._ He folds tight to hide any quaking, palming back the mess of his coif. "And you-- I'm not some kind of-- fucking _hell_ , Mags. _Elfist._ "

"I'm sorry!" Magnus rubs at his forming bruise, but looks surprisingly uncowed. Just worried-- and confused.

_Well, let him be,_ Taako thinks. Pulling up his knees and smoothing hair, tics far more obvious than the ache building in his throat. He swallows it, forcefully.

"I just..." Magnus ventures, settling down to sit on his heels. "I don't get  _why,_ " he says. Helpless and lost. And there's that look, the kicked-puppy eyes, those stupid eyes full of love and feeling, so big and dark and brown and  _warm_ ...

"You think _I_ do?" He forces his hands still after the fifth time, feeling an ear twitch as his hand ghosts past it. "He told me to come here."

Magnus's brows lower, quite seriously. "Huh?"

"Not in exact words," he confesses, untangling. With the storm passed, he forces his posture relaxed and collapses back into the pillows, but his legs stay tense. Ready to bolt. "Fucking _demigods_ , Magnus. It's the worst. It's-- it's all this cryptic, knowing, gentle _bullshit_. It makes me sick."

It makes him exposed, more like. And he feels guilty for describing cool, fond patience that way, but not guilty for being honest. He folds his hands on his belly and shuts his eyes. It's like having a headache in his moral convictions. He gropes blindly around for the bottle, and Magnus hands it to him.

"That's rough," comes the consolation. He opens his eyes after a stiff swig to look up back up at the man's expression, trying to read it. Magnus looks like he might if he were solving a puzzle. "I mean... He _did_ try to kill us."

"And that!" he admits, without true disdain, but sure as hell capable of recognizing a _pattern_. Tipping the bottle again, but stopping himself from truly swallowing. He abandons it on the dresser with a sigh, and turns around tight to curl himself up and get comfortable. If Mags was ever intending to oust him for the night, he doesn't show it now, moving to settle beside him at the headboard.

After a bit of silence, Magnus makes a venture; "What do you, uh... See in him, exactly."

He scoffs, and stamps down an internal bristling. "Jeezy creezy, mags. Be a little less obvious."

"Ha, yeah." And then a fumbling save, in a moment. "I'm not-- I mean, I don't think you..."

"I know," he offers, reaching over to pat Magnus' thigh. "Sorry for-- Eh. Taako's got your number. Chillax, babe."

He does. A calm settles in the air, and despite it Taako's mind coils. He lets his nails graze over Magnus' thigh, up to the spot where ribs met heel, and taps is as an apology. Magnus brushes his fingers away, but not unkindly.

There's an ache, all the same. And he doesn't want to admit it, bundling tighter and holding still. Like waiting for something to pass by, hoping to go unnoticed.

"Refuge?" Magnus sighs out, after a while. A little too quiet, which perks Taako's ears.

"Refuge," he admits.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

"No," Taako scoffs-- reaches up to prod a jiggling bicep. "But _you_ do." Somehow, the insight seems to surprise him, and Magnus returns to a shrinking self-consciousness. That doggish, naive look of wanting to do right.

"It's not--" Magnus balks, pauses, which is unusual. He's never seen the guy hold back in his life, he thinks, but he can sense all the big weight of it roped in. "It is what it is. I'm... I'm okay."

Taako knows a lie when he hears one, especially _that_ lie. But he's content to turn back into curling on Magnus' pillows. If it's none of his business, it's none of his business.

Well. Almost content. There's a bubbling in him that soon turns compulsive. There's an aura coming off of the man behind him that would make sleeping impossible, and the high he's been on for years and years since it all seems to finally crumble to its core. He wilts, where he lies on the bed. He considers himself, what an obvious mess he's been already, and goes, _fuck it._

He realizes how all of this looks, coming into his bed and failing to seduce him, and lingering anyway-- he wonders if everything has been so transparent. What is he doing? What is he _doing_? The question chokes the air; why is he _here?_

It could go unsaid, he's sure. It has before. So he's sure he opens his mouth just to punish himself, in the end.

"I lied to you about the cooking show," he mutters. Listening to Magnus shift above him, and not looking. Just talking, before his better sense clams him up. "There was this guy. He thought I hung the moon. When he found out I didn't.... he tried to. Kill me." He feels himself stuck on the actual _k word_ of the thing, and swallows before rebounding. "Except, whoops! Taako goofed that one up. I fed forty people the chicken he poisoned, and they all died. No more _sizzilin it up_. Ever."

He doesn't hesitate through the silence behind him, or turn to look Magnus' face. Instead he sits up, plucking the bottle back up from the dresser. Gestures, speaking with his hands towards the empty room.

"The funniest thing is-- I never put it together!" He heaves out those last words and they _empty_ him, suddenly, a giant deflating woosh that leaves him exhausted and spent. _He'd never once guessed._ Stupid. He lifts the bottle, for another swig. "...Can't think of anyone but myself, all the way to the end."

He still doesn't look to Magnus, but keeps his ears perked, holds his eyes to the side. Just in case. And continues, babbling through the jitters that remain. "But I'm gonna get it back. Somehow. Somehow-- I'll get it back. I _will,_ Magnus." That conviction is new in him. He can't let anyone but himself ruin his own life.

That's about all he can do. He leaves the bottle, plops back down onto the pillows. On his back, this time, so he can look up and see Magnus' face. _Oh._

The man looks... he was worried he'd see pitying, or loving, or sad. Magnus is not so eager to do that, it seems. To frantically put off his own misery, fetishizing someone else's-- or maybe, it was just more than he'd bargained for. More real than he'd hoped. It seems neither of them are themselves, tonight, like they'd swapped bodies again, like they'd done _something_ in coming together here. Magnus does not look wounded or foolish or anything like himself.

Not uncaring. He can feel that much, in the way those dark eyes hold onto him. It looks like a man who suddenly understands something.

"C'mon, pal. Say something." He nudges the bruise forming on Magnus' ribs, watching the man's big fingers come down to hold the spot tenderly. "What are you doing when it's over?"

That uncommon look flickers off his face, then back. "Oh. Uh..." Then he falters, chewing silence back into his lip. Taako pats his arm, then withdraws it, realizing he's being too-- _touchy. Drunk._

"Carpentry, yeah?" Words still leak out of his mouth after the great heave of them from earlier, trying to bury the old ones. "You're good at it. You'll find work."

"I lied about carpentry," Magnus answers him, two of a pair. Quick. Starting to waver, and he sees a little hurt in those eyes and feels it too, and is at least smart enough to feel nervous and sick at the realization. "I was one, I mean, I just-- I really was a carpenter." He repeats it for some reason, as if there isn't evidence enough in the sawdust and projects strewn about the room. He's quiet, for a moment longer. Taako does not interrupt, not this time. Magnus looks away, before he speaks, making sure he's looking at nothing at all.

"I'm here to do one thing. After that... it's not important. It doesn't matter."

Taako woofs out a breath. " _Jeez_."

Well. Whatever tonight was, it wasn't the sex he was hoping for, so Taako quietly packages the events of the evening and plucks himself off the bed, moving to sway to the door. Hoping he can tuck this all away. He doesn't expect a hand coming about his wrist.

"Stay," Magnus says, soft. _There's_ the hint of him, the hint of all he is, all that feeling and love. Whatever it is going unspoken, here, in Magnus' past, it's terrible. He can sense it.

"Why, s'you can get all weepy on me?" He notes the slurring of his words as Magnus pulls him back down, and at first it's just to be close. They find mouths after a while, but don't have time to do much more than that until he passes right out on Magnus' chest, still feeling fingers move through his hair. His own arm around Magnus' stomach, his own ear to Magnus' heart.

 

 

\---

 

5\. The End

 

\---

 

The end of the world does come, and as always, takes far too much with it.

He never gets the pieces back to put it all together. He's never had a sister, he's never been in space, and he and Magnus have never been in love. If there's some other Taako that exists, the idea is little more than haunting. Some sort of intruder on the border of a self he's already weighed so much against, to find it lacking again and again. He's not sure he'd take the leap, if he could. He can't, though; things at this scope aren't solved with decisions, with witty tricks. Just bloody survival. Just going on. So he resolves to go on.

He's just what he's always had, nothing more.

Well, one thing more.

Years before any of it, in a little tavern in Hammerfel, he'd been yelled at by a dwarf he'd only met yesterday.

"What do you mean _watch him_ ," he says, blistering beyond pretense. He's sore, and scuffed, and muddy, and still reeling with adrenaline from their little mission turned disaster. He's as mad at them both as he is at himself for taking the stupid job, he should have _known_ it was too good to be true. In retrospect he can't tell why he did it, what it was that made him look this guy in the eye and agree to--

"I mean stay here and watch him while I go get our pay," says the dwarf-- what was his _name,_ even? He struggles to place it, before remembering to abandon any gesture so sincere towards someone who nearly had gotten him killed.

And as for the request? _No,_ his instincts tell him. He crosses his arms and scowls down, far down.

"How about _you_ watch him, and _I'll_ go collect."

"Our client doesn't _know_ you!" He explains, half-imploring, both palms up and out. _Both_ palms, which sticks in his memory, somehow. When Taako looks up, Merle-- that's his name, _Merle_ 's expression is exasperation bordering on rage. But rage out of this soft old man could hardly be so bad, he guesses-- and he's right, when it starts to fizzle. "He risked his life for you, and you can't sit here for _ten minutes_ \--"

That makes him bristle. "I didn't ask him to do that," he snipes. _I didn't ask._ "I'm here for a job, I did it, and I want to get paid. That's _it_ , my man. I'm not-- I'm not your friend. You _hired_ me."

Merle cools, looks him over. The only sound in the room is a slow, ragged heave of breath from the body in the bed by the wall, and somehow, Taako manages to keep his face unwincing. Unburdened by guilt, thinking of those splintered ribs.

"10 gold."

He balks. "What?"

"You get 10 gold extra if you sit here and keep an eye on him. Out of my cut." Merle is already hoisting his bag from the floor onto his shoulder, and Taako stands there on the cusp of babbling. He's losing precious moments to surprise.

He wants to ask, _why_. He shoves down such a naive impulse, and says something else; "Fifteen."

"Twelve," Merle offers, without looking up.

"Fine," Taako mumbles, backing towards the nightstand. He leans on it-- crosses his arms, crosses his ankle over his calf, turns down his head. "Fine."

Merle says nothing more, and ignores the fidgeting. He heads out into the morning, and that just leaves Taako with the room, and the sounds. A stolen knife, to peel a stolen apple.

 

 

\--

 

There's a similar scene, after the world ends.

Or it doesn't end. It comes back around, is all. It meets itself; Taako meets himself, another self, and parts ways with it. Lup wasn't his elixer. She had something much better to be, he was sure-- he hoped-- he knew, and clung to knowing.

So here he is by a fire, in a campsite, off the road, a ways from a nice town. But this time that road is going somewhere. He's got a name to clear, a show to resume. Merle's on the way to his family, and Magnus-- well, to what, no one knows. He's the only one of them who lost something that can't be gone back to.

Right now the man is sleeping, the only one of them sleeping, while Merle and Taako sit across on either side of of the crackling fire. Above them, the night sky is bands of color from meridian to sunset. Black to periwinkle to peach. Taako's drinking it in, happy to have numbers back in his head. _Wheels, pans, one oxen or two? What stove fits best in a wagon, this day and age?_

"We're gonna have to look after him."

Taako blinks aware, and looks at him across the distance. He's all orange and blue from night and firelight, and Taako does not interrupt to ask, so Merle answers.

"Because he's a good guy. The world can be tough, for a good guy."

 _Like getting a dog_ , he thinks. And instead of saying that out loud first, he looks at Magnus bundled over in his sleeping bag and blurts out; "I don't like dogs."

Merle raises an eyebrow, at that.

"I mean-- c'mon, really? Him, on my heels all day?" He answers. Magnus, despite being so many feet tall and wide, and so big, and so strong, looks now like the most fragile thing in Faerun. Too exposed, under all this sky. "He's a big boy. Besides, anybody that can't look after themselves, it can't be helped."

"You still think that? After everything."

Taako kicks at a stick, to look above it all. "Me? _Learn_? Never." And then, in a moment; "He'll be okay. People love him."

"M-huh," Merle replies, vague and gruff. He doesn't seem to want to push it one way or another. It's a nice night at the end of a century-long two years, and when Taako searches his feelings he finds himself happy. Somehow, at the end of it all, quite happy. And he doesn't look away from Magnus, not once, as Merle lays out his bedroll and goes to sleep.

 

\--

 

In the morning, the largest bedroll is empty. He gives Magnus' absence the few minutes it could have taken to be the obvious reason, then peels himself reluctantly out of his own blankets to check his surroundings, sniffing the air. He picks up the direction in a minute, and pads up the hill that had sheltered them from the wind, his cloak pulled around his shoulders.

He finds him there, standing right at the vista. The sun is spilling up over the top of the distant mountains, and Taako crosses from the blue shadow of the hill up into the bathing of orange light, coming to stand next to his friend.

Magnus looks at him, smiles, and turns back. Takes a deliberate, deep breath of the wild air into his nose. "Look at that."

He does, alright. "Real pretty, Mags."

"Sure is," he says. "I think I'd want to live on a hill, somewhere. Something with a view."

Taako snorts, and steps closer, leaning towards Magnus' side for warmth. As expected, the man lifts his arm and drops it back down around his shoulders, a warm and grounding weight. He tries not to smile, fails to.

"All vista and no vertigo," he mutters. Magnus jostles him fairly, but their grins don't falter, and he settles in deeper towards that warmth. "Good. You deserve it."

"Thanks," he answers. "And you-- the show. That's gonna be great. I can't wait to start hearing stories from you."

"All good ones!" he insists, practically hoots out into the valley, and Magnus laughs in turn. So he carries on. "Success from here on out, baby! Nothing less! Not for Taako! No more garlic, no more Sazeds!" It feels safe to yell it here in front of woods and sunrise. He's still bristling with that energy, still haunted by doubt, but ready to try.

"Aww," Magnus coos. "No assistants? Angus would love to."

" _Angus_ is in school," he corrects, pauses. "If I'm ever in Neverwinter, though, I'll have him on. Oh-- and Lucy, while we're there. Wonder if she ever got the hang of the macarons."

"Oh man, _guests_." he says. And only grins, because he knows. Taako grins, too, teeth and all.

"Yup. Sizzlin it up, with _Taako and Friends_."

"They'd travel?"

"I'd travel. Got friends everywhere now! _Connections_." He schemes aloud into the bright new day. Bumps his shoulder up into Magnus' armpit, playfully. "First stop down in Refuge, maybe. _Gotta_ have Ren on. And I'll bet Roswell would be a hoot and a half on stage."

"Or a, uh, cheep-- a tweet? A chirp and a half."

"I think they could wing it--"

"A little _bird_ told me--"

"Okay, enough." He swats him, gently. "So where's this hill of yours gonna be, huh? So..." And stops, settles the swat-palm down on his bicep, instead. "So I know where to find ya, sometime. See how you're livin."

Magnus stares him down, and he swallows, caught. But Magnus knows, and only _catches_ to _hold_. What a man. In all the world, in any of the worlds, what a man--

"Only _sometime_?"

He falters, in a good way. He likes the feeling. "Well-- I won't make you _beg_ , mags."

_Hoo boy,_ too much. He's sure. But...

That large hand comes down to his own, and catches to hold it. He gulps again.

"I wanna talk about, uh." Magnus waves a finger like a pendulum, between the two of them. "This."

It's been too long of a two years to fight, anymore, so Taako shrugs where he might have evaded, put it off. "What about it, tuts?" Mags smiles, and it's doing all kinds of things to deeper parts of him. He has to double take, constantly; _Yeah? Hmm. Yeah._

"We could, you know." Magnus said. "Give it a try."

" _Now_?" he implores. "Don't know if you caught the atmo back a camp, honey, but we're all splittin the map here. I'm off to-- you know." And squints, quizzically. "And the change of tune, buddy. What's that about?"

"I know!" Magnus confirms, laughing. "I know. I do. I just-- we've been doing it halfway, you know?" And that gleaming grin settles into something a bit more fragile, and god help him, he flutters. "And it's not... it hasn't been bad."

"It's not bad," Taako repeats. Asking or or answering, he doesn't know. He lifts a thoughtful hand up against his lips.

They watch the clouds for a little while. And it's not bad.

Magnus speaks up, after a bit.

"Raven's Roost--" And he'd been told, a while before. Long after Calen was scrubbed from a mind that should never have had to carry him, though it was still a loss. "My whole life was over, then. I thought."

Taako listens, watching Magnus' eyes look ages wiser than they have. And that pulls him in, makes his hand come back up to brace along that arm. "I guess. Until kinda recently, I wasn't even sure why I was alive. There was just this voice in my head, like, keep going. Don't quit." He looks sad even as he smiles, rubs his face with a hand and fails to quite sniffle, a sound that shatters clarity down into Taako's soul. "I felt kind of like it was _her_ voice, so I had to listen. I didn't know why. That probably sounds kinda dumb?"

Taako's quiet, this time, but shakes his head without meeting their eyes and keeps rubbing his hand along Magnus' arm. He thinks he hears a barely spoken _thank you._

"It wasn't just me," he continues. "Lots of people lost-- ...people. Homes. Everything. Not just in Raven's Roost, but the whole war. In every war. Julia's mom, Maureen, _Boyland_. And it's like." He stops, looks him in the eye. "It's like Noelle said? The whole world isn't _gone_ , Taako. It's still _here_. That's what they were fighting for." That seems to be the end; Magnus looks back towards the sun. "I guess I've been kind of selfish."

That's a hell of a take, so through his awe at this good, good man he lets loose a giggle. But only that. He doesn't know what to say. He does know to come in and lean into that broad chest, hiding from the morning cold. Magnus bundles him up, warm arms over the blanket, and he breathes in that presence. That torso like a wall, like a shield, that little beating heart in his ribs. There's a swell in him, feeling it.

"I want to," he says. "But... you're settling down, and I'm not-- I don't settle." _Yet,_ his heart betrays. His mind is worse, filling up with images of them growing old by fireplaces. _Hmm._

"I know," Magnus says. "It's... cool. Really."

"Hmm," he mutters. Observing. "Keepin it caszhies. Not like you, Burnsides."

"I wanna try something new," he offers. So simply. "I promise if... if you wanna give it a chance, I'll be careful." So much goes unsaid in everything but that fragile look in his eyes. _Careful._ That's what breaks him, that stupid word, as if it's _Magnus_ of the two of them that poses danger.

In his head, he thinks; _a century spent in the same handful of years._ An unbroken circle, until yesterday.

"Something new," he says. Not meaning to sound breathless. But he does, turning to look at the rising sun. "I like the sound of that."

Hell. It could even be fun.

 

\---

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I guess the premise is that instead of a different year on a different planet, it's the same two years of their adventure looped fifty times while Lucretia tries to find a way to balance between two ways that the world keeps ending. Also I didn't have extensive proofreading time so sorry if I missed something obvious.


End file.
